


Light Lost in the Shadows

by RosettaStarlight



Category: Descendants (Disney Movies)
Genre: Gen, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Isle of the Lost (Disney), Isle of the Lost (Disney) is a Terrible Place, Magic on the Isle of the Lost (Disney), Multi, Original Character(s), Other, Revenge, There will be a lot of OCs, United States of Auradon (Disney), United States of Auradon (Disney) Is Not Perfect, Villains, okay
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-29
Updated: 2020-04-30
Packaged: 2021-03-02 05:01:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23919379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RosettaStarlight/pseuds/RosettaStarlight
Summary: Mal always got everything, didn't she? Well, not this time...No, Auradon didn't get to just erase their mistakes and pretend nothing ever happened.He'd make sure of it.----------------It's been nearly a year since the barrier was brought down, and Mal just wants to be done with all the adventures and just have her happily ever after. It's hard with all the work to be done to reintroduce the Isle people into Auradon society, but she and Ben are making it work. Until a dark presence makes itself known in Auradon.One with a personal agenda having to do with Mal and the citizens of Auradon. And a closer connection to Mal than she'd thought.
Relationships: Ben/Mal (Disney: Descendants), Gil/Jay (Disney: Descendants), Harry Hook/Audrey Rose/Uma, Jane/Carlos de Vil, Okay but I'm not gonna lie most of these are just in the background
Kudos: 21





	Light Lost in the Shadows

This wasn't fair.

Mal always got _everything_. And now the fates were just handing her this too? All for her to just take it for granted and abandon everyone else.

Well, that was Malificent Jr. for you. Long as she got what she wanted, who cares about all those left behind, right? Seems she was a lot more like mommy dearest than either she or the woman that gave them life were able to see.

No one on the Isle had it _easy_. Never. _Easy_ would make them soft, and their parents couldn't have that, no. Besides, the kings and queens of Auradon decided long ago that the children of villains, criminals, and all those who didn't share their worldview were undeserving of such luxuries. Life on the Isle was tough, and made the skin of its citizens even tougher in order to survive. If easy was what you wanted, than you belonged on Auradon because on the Isle of the Lost, the weak had little chance of survival.

Still, compared to everyone else, Mal did have it easy. Her mother was the Mistress of Evil, and the title alone was enough to send those at the bottom running and those closer to the top nervous. Her father was the God of the Dead, and though the man cared about his children, he cared more about upsetting his wife, Persephone, who hated those of his blood that were not hers as well, and if given the chance would love to smite her husband's demigod bastards. She was fae and demigod, with two powerful lines of two powerful races in her blood. With their combined flowing through her veins.

If she wanted to, Mal could have brought the whole Isle down to its knees. Which was exactly what Malificent had planned when she propositioned the god in order to create her perfect heir. But what did little miss perfect do instead?

Squander all the gifts she was given, all the gifts the Fates themselves had handed to her. She'd done absolutely nothing with them. Because like the coward she was, she refused to embrace the godly powers she could wield if she only stopped fighting it.

On the Isle, magic was blocked, unavailable to the Supernatural creatures whose magic was part of them, but for the demigod children of the Isle, they were too powerful to be stopped _completely_. So though a majority of their magic were stripped from them, the gods and their children still held at least a fraction of their powers. Too little for the gods' taste, but for those who had learned to work with what they had from the very beginning, it wasn't too much an issue.

So Mal had all the options, been given so much more than most Isle children, had a life that on the Isle was considered of the Upper class, and still refused to use them and remained ungrateful for all of it. All the other villains, most of them didn't ever want children, no, if they did, it was to carry out their precious legacy, but the mistakes...the ones they didn't desire but we're stuck with anyway.... They didn't want children so they might as well get a free employee.

Mal thought her own mother treated her horribly? Ha! Hayden would give anything to see her in the shoes of literally almost anyone else on the Isle for her to see how damn _lucky_ she was compared to everyone else.

He knew just how much worse she could have it. He'd lived on the Isle's streets long enough to have seen it all. Seen children near starved or worked to the bone, seen children sick and dying and their parents not giving a single damn, seen children covered in bruises and scabs, seen parents selling their children's bodies to buy food, seen children forced to participate in the fight ring and be punished if they lost.

Mal had it easy. And did she take advantage of the kindness the Fates had blessed her with? No!

But Malificent decided to keep her, the weakling who couldn't even do what needed to be done when it was dropped right. Into. Her. Lap. _Easiest_ plan in the world to dominate and take control, especially when she had the soon-to-be-king wrapped around her finger, and she still failed! She chose good, she chose the people who put them on the wretched island to begin with to rot, and she chose to forget all those left behind in luei of the warm, sunshiny, perfect Auradon. She chose to be among the spoiled, privileged and greedy who had all the resources to help on the Isle but left them all to do without, while her own people were rotting away and fighting for whatever scraps they could find.

Because of course, Mal got everything! _Always_. Even on the Isle, she was practically royalty, and now she was to be wed to the oh-so-perfect King of oh-so- _fucking_ -perfect Auradon.

Meanwhile, what did he get? The one who actually fought tooth and nail to get everything he had, respect, power, and followers, instead of just dropping his name and title but never actually doing anything to live up to it? He got trapped inside this stupid prison because he decided he wasn't going to stand for the injustice done upon them for the simple crime of being born!

What did she have that he didn't that made the Fates favor her so? If their destinies had been switched, she wouldn't have lasted a day. Her mother made both their lives hell, and Mal actually forgave the bitch! She forgave all the villains of the Isle by relinquishing the barrier and allowing them to come and go to Auradon as they please.

What had she been thinking? Was she even thinking at all? The children deserved Auradon, yes, on that he'd agree. But it took her two years to remember them, two more years of suffering that, if not for a little humility check, might have gone on forever. And she just forgave the bastards that put each and every one of those children through hell! With what, the notion that they'd turn a new leaf and change just because they were now in perfectly perfect Auradon?!

No, no, Hayden had seen some of the absolute worse of what a person can do to another on that place. Anyone who could exploit and abuse their own flesh and blood in such ways...they would never change.

They would lie through their teeth, say they're sorry, beg for forgiveness, and then go right back to their old ways, just making sure they don't get caught this time.

Mal was weak, reckless, and thought only of herself until she's reminded of the others around her. And she still just fixed her mistakes, said sorry, and everyone went back to loving her as if nothing happened.

He was the one who had actually cared, he was the one who, if he had been in Mal's place, would have done whatever was necessary, regardless of personal feelings, if it meant getting the rights and freedoms of those back home without. Even if not right away, he would be patient, he would wait, like he always did, for the perfect moment. Wait until their guard was down, wait until he gained their trust, work from a position of power to care for the Isle kids even from afar until the time came to free them.

Not their parents, though. He may spare a few but the rest he would torture their souls for all eternity and leave them to rot once he ascended to his rightful throne in the Underworld, an even worse punishment planned for those who placed them there to begin with. Because Hayden gave people what he felt they deserved from the crimes they committed. He had been judge, juror, and executioner within the barrier of the Isle. The only person who had the power and cared enough to keep actual order while granting some sense of justice, keeping gangs from tearing out each other's throats and making sure any who harmed those under his protection _paid_.

He used to be powerful, and now he was stuck in this prison where time stood still and there was nothing but the window into the outside where he could only know what was going on in the world from snippets heard and seen. All because he'd been ratted out when his preparations were almost complete—there had been a mole, he knew it, someone had to have told them of the individual plotting to overthrow Auradon.

It was pathetic how easily he'd been dethroned. He was Hayden, the son of Hades!

....The son Malificent had cast out to die when he was clear to have been born more god than fae as an infant, among the few on the Isle who still had some semblance of magic. But of course, she kept Mal because Mal was her spitting image, a strong, powerful fae.

Or maybe because she knew at some point, she wouldn't be able to keep him on a leash like he did her.

Hayden had once been the defender for the children on the Isle who couldn't defend themselves. In his lair, he and his gang reigned. Those that opposed him or tried to attack those under his protection, he dealt with. Children had gone there when they was too scared to return home, gone there when there was nowhere else to go; they didn't even have to join if they didn't want to, but if they ever needed safety from the dangers of the Isle, the dangers of their own families, he was there. His fae blood kept his words as truth, so they knew to trust him.

He hardly knew when he began helping the children of the Isle, but it was because of him some had managed to live as long as they did, his magic finding sick children, injured children, abused children, those on the verge of death, and healed them.

Though no one ever saw him, eventually, while the adults remained in the dark, the kids figured it was him and soon it became common knowledge: If you need safety, go to Hayden. He helped and yet pretended he didn't as a way to keep them from perceiving him as soft, and no one ever confronted him.

He had never called in any debts, never held anything over people's heads. Instead, he had them officially on his side by them simply willing to join him for protection or because they shared his same views, respected him, and chose to stand with him. He had made alliances and ran the Isle's teenage underground.

And what had he to show for it? _Nothing_. Auradon had ripped him away, and by doing that, had also taken away the one person who cared enough to protect the Isle kids. So some went back to their parents, and a lot of those that Hayden had been assisting went back to their previous lives worse than before, and he barely even knew what became of them, wondering everyday if they were doing okay or dead somewhere without anyone to care enough to bury the body.

They didn't want to improve anything, they didn't want to stop the villain, they just wanted them to all _disappear_. That was the reason they created the Isle in the first place, wasn't it? So they could get rid of them all and then never think of them again? That was exactly what they wanted when they locked him away, too.

Except Hayden refused to let them do that to him. Auradon didn't deserve the luxury of just getting to erase their every mistake and pretend it never happened.

That wasn't how things worked.

And as the familiar face stared back at him as she undid the enchantment holding him captive, he knew now was the time he taught them all a lesson.

After all, _he_ was the rightful Prince of the Underworld.

And Judgement day was here.


End file.
